Lincoln Center Proceeds, Modestly

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: May 8, 2003

When it was first announced in 1999, Lincoln Center's redevelopment was to cost $1.5 billion over 10 years and radically transform the campus. The architect Frank Gehry devised a glass atrium over the fountain plaza. There was talk of a new home for the New York City Opera in Damrosch Park.

Now the City Opera has decided to move downtown. Avery Fisher Hall is likely to be renovated rather than rebuilt. New York City, in perilous fiscal straits, appears unlikely to be able to fulfill the $240 million pledge that Rudolph W. Giuliani made for the project when he was mayor. The private sector is feeling the economic pinch before fund-raising has even begun.

What's left of the redevelopment project? What part of it can Lincoln Center hope to accomplish?

With the economic downturn, all the grand plans now seem like pipe dreams. The 11 private and public groups involved in the redevelopment have been forced to reassess. New management has come in at the top -- Bruce Crawford as chairman and Reynold Levy as president -- arriving in the wake of internecine tensions that had slowed the project.

The plan looks decidedly more modest today, and less glamorous. The center is taking the project step by step now, rather than attempting a transformation all at once. Mr. Crawford said he expected it to cost $500 million to $800 million, half of what was originally projected. Its most solid feature right now is turning West 65th Street into the main artery of the performing arts center, a project that together with Lincoln Center's other public spaces is expected to cost $150 million. It is to begin in June 2004.

Many of those involved in the project say that Peter M. Lehrer, the construction executive who became chairman of the redevelopment project in September, is unhappy in the job, finding himself a builder who has not been able to build anything.

Mr. Crawford said the diminished scope of the project merely reflected the economic climate, just as the original plans were a child of the flush late 90's. ''It was really a time when grand plans were prevalent everywhere,'' Mr. Crawford said. ''Wish lists were de rigueur.''

But he and Mr. Levy said the reconstruction would proceed, because it was essential.

''This is not what we would like to have; it is what is necessary,'' Mr. Crawford said. ''These are not luxuries. We're looking at it today in that light.'' He continued: ''Lincoln Center's theaters and public spaces have to be improved and maintained. You can't go decades without bringing them up to date.''

The redevelopment still amounts to significant changes, Mr. Levy said, not merely nips and tucks. The new 65th Street, for example, is being redesigned by Diller & Scofidio, the contemporary architecture team. ''I don't think you retain Diller & Scofidio to simply spruce up the existing place,'' Mr. Levy said.

Mr. Crawford has assembled working committees for each aspect of the project, with members from the center's 13 various constituent groups, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Juilliard School and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, represented on each one. Several smaller infrastructure projects are already under way, like the upgrading of the Met's stage wagons, which move scenery.

In February Lincoln Center created the post of executive director of the Campaign for Lincoln Center and gave it to Rosemarie Garipoli, who led similar drives for the New York Botanical Garden and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Once design plans are established, Mr. Crawford said, he planned to look for donations of $5 million or more to kick off the fund-raising.

By all accounts the atmosphere at Lincoln Center is considerably less contentious since Mr. Crawford and Mr. Levy came on board, replacing Beverly Sills and Gordon Davis. Almost to a person executives of the constituent groups described the new management team as effective, with Mr. Levy as the upbeat optimist and Mr. Crawford as the levelheaded realist.

That is not to say that Lincoln Center is free of internal politics. When a recent benefit was being planned to honor Beverly Sills's service as chairwoman of Lincoln Center, Ms. Sills insisted that $1 million of the money raised go toward the Metropolitan Opera, where she is now chairwoman. The move ruffled some feathers, given that the proceeds -- an impressive $4.5 million -- were originally intended for Lincoln Center Inc., the center's landlord, with some of the money earmarked for the redevelopment.

Because of the city's budget cutbacks, Mr. Giuliani's pledge of $240 million no longer seems realistic. Lincoln Center received an initial payment from the city of $24 million in December 2001. About $14 million of that money remained, Mr. Crawford said. The city has asked that Lincoln Center spend the money on actual building rather than planning. ''This is tax-levy money,'' said Kate D. Levin, the cultural affairs commissioner. ''Some portion needs to be spent on tangible assets.''

Lincoln Center has agreed to assume all planning costs as well as staffing the redevelopment and fund-raising. Lincoln Center will match the fund-raising of each constituent group, Mr. Levy said: 20 percent of the first $25 million raised and 15 percent of anything above $25 million.

Mr. Crawford said the city had promised $5 million a year over the next three years, with the contribution jumping to a projected $96 million in 2006, an unlikely number in the present economy.